Some people watch It's A Wonderful Life at Christmas time; I watch The Candidate at election time. Crisply directed by Michael Ritchie, it is highly recommended for Democrats and independents dreading Tuesday night's results.

Governor Jerry Brown has earned the moniker of California's Comeback Kid. Reinventing himself several times during his political career, he continues to gain distance from being the "Moonbeam" governor to becoming California's version of "Father Knows Best."

Though the election was largely a bore, it did have some interesting outcomes, not only in the statewide races but also in some district level races for Congress and state Assembly and even local office.

Brown, Schwarzenegger, and Davis are not so much left-wing figures or right-wing figures as they are up-wing figures, i.e., political leaders who place a special emphasis on big think/think big future-oriented policies that position California on the global cutting edge.

If the CIA becomes regarded as monstrous and out of control by not just the usual critics but also by much of the mainstream in the U.S. and around the world -- and they are on that cusp right now -- some of the most important tools in protecting the United States and its interests short of war become, at best, decidedly double-edged swords.

Mandela is nothing short of a consensus world icon, celebrated from the most insurgent to the most establishmentarian precincts, as he should be. But why, then, was his cause so difficult for so many to support when action was needed?

Amidst the plaudits for his record and his new/renewed governorship, California Republicans met over the weekend past in convention to, among other things, discuss what they will try to do next year when Brown runs for re-election, something he has not yet announced.

The Flood is a good episode of Mad Men, especially in a Season 6 off to an uneven start. It came at a good time, too, reassuring that our characters are not all irretrievably stuck in tedious personal melodramas. That, actually, they can be very appealing people.

Governor Jerry Brown is working on the new California state budget, the first in more than a decade to be free of the state's deep chronic fiscal crisis. It's an agenda which his two most immediate predecessors, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis, in large measure promoted themselves.

Some imagine that Brown is at last embracing the way of his father, the legendary late Governor Pat Brown, widely credited as the builder of modern California, in developing what might be called an Edifice Complex. But that's not quite it.